January 2017 – Page 3 – GEORGE ROTHERT

Truth Becomes Fiction Becomes Truth

In the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the Coen Brothers retold – sort of – Homer’s Odyssey, but relocated to depression-era Mississippi. (It also generated interest in so-called “Americana” or “Roots” music,” thanks to the best-selling soundtrack put together by T-Bone Burnett.) George Clooney played Ulysses Everett McGill, a chain-gang escapee and con man, trying to get back to his estranged wife Penny, portrayed by Holly Hunter, and their seven daughters. He needs to prove he’s “bona fide,” so they will take him back.

You’re probably asking what this has to do with Donald Trump.

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Organic Agriculture Report

California recently joined Oregon, Washington, Colorado and other states by making legal the sale and use of marijuana for no purported medical reasons. Whether this will eliminate the surreptitious growers illegally using private and public land and who poison the ground and water with chemicals and trash and divert water from streams in the midst of serious drought… well, we’ll see.

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The End of Hawaiian Sugar

Tourists visiting Maui can no longer ooh and aah at the spectacular flames – and choking smoke – from burning sugar cane after the harvest. The last shipment of sugar from Hawaii was recently unloaded at the C & H (California & Hawaiian) plant in the tiny town of Crockett, northeast of San Francisco. After 145 years – one year less than Ringling Brothers Circus – the sugar industry is no more in Hawaii. Government subsidies and cheap labor have made sugar from Florida the winner in the marketplace.

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The Notorious Pink Lady of Malibu Canyon

Fed up with the graffiti despoiling the area around the Malibu Canyon tunnel, Lynne Westmore Bloom decided to do something about it. During the night she suspended herself with ropes down the rocks above the tunnel’s entrance. She went to work to chipping away at the defacement. Finally, after several months of nocturnal labor removing graffiti and clearing out scraggly brush, in one night, October 1966, using ordinary house paint, she created her gift to Los Angeles commuters: a sixty-foot-tall naked lady.

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MLK and AZ and the NFL

After four unsuccessful election attempts, Evan Mecham took office as Governor of Arizona in 1987. His first official act was to rescind his predecessor’s executive order creating the Martin Luther King Jr holiday in the state.

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Canada and the U.S.Eh.

Time is running out if you are one of the many who vowed to emigrate to Canada. Less than a week remains until Inauguration Day and the new President of these United States. Have you learned what Loonies and Toonies are yet? And remember, no one-dollar bills and no pennies. Canadian elections are different from what you’re used to. Citizens complained about the length of the last election campaign – 78 days. Compare that to U.S. campaigns measured in years.

It will take some getting used to for you to let go of your cynicism and not be suspicious because Canadians are so darned nice. If you’re the intellectual type, read here about the origin of the all-purpose invariant tag “eh.” (And what is an “invariant tag.”)

Interesting side note: Several years ago, we sold our business to a Canadian firm. In the course of their due diligence, they were very, shall we say, impressed with what our company spent on employee health coverage… compared to their expense of zero.

To help with your transition to the new culture, watch this educational video.