The World We Live In

I found this one courtesy of The Smallest Minority: Every word out of their mouth was, 'We don't care.'  In short, an elderly unemployed lady without health insurance decided to grow her own food in her own yard.  When some silly son-of-a-bitch complained to the city government, the city sent out a work team and cut it all down.  Now Denise Morrison is suing the city.

There's no accounting for taste.  When I lived in Jacksonville, Florida I met some very pleasant people who objected to the family half a block down from their house because of the tiered vegetable garden in the front yard.  Go figure, right?  Here's the article and a few particulars:

Woman Sues City of Tulsa For Cutting Down Her Edible Garden

Denise Morrison said she has more than 100 plant varieties in her front and back yards and all of them are edible and have a purpose.

She knows which ones will treat arthritis, which will make your food spicy, which ones keep mosquitoes away and treat bug bites, but she said none of that matter to city inspectors.

Last August, Morrison's front and back yards were filled with flowers in bloom, lemon, stevia, garlic chives, grapes, strawberries, apple mint, spearmint, peppermint, an apple tree, walnut tree, pecan trees and much more.

In my own estimation, this goes to the cement plant theory of graceful human behavior. You are not allowed to build a cement plant in my back yard. How would you like to wake up some morning and discover that some giant corporation had decided to construct this little gem right next to your flower garden?

Cement Plant

You'll pass?  I thought so.  Along the same lines you, the individual or the collective, are not allowed to play ear splitting music that prevents me from enjoying the solace of my own home.  I'll vote for peace and tranquility every single time.

This isn't about restrictions on capitalism or freedom of speech.  This is about one or more people being a pain in the royal verpa because they think that they are more important than everyone else.  Such is the nature of people.

Denise Morrison didn't build a cement plant, nor did she play rap music at an ear splitting volume.  She had a real nice garden on her own property, built and maintained by her own efforts.  She used the produce from that garden to make her life a little easier.  The elected officials of Tulsa, Oklahoma destroyed her garden at the expense the taxpayers, and they did it because they could.

This is the government the people of Tulsa elected, and while I don't live in Tulsa (for which I'm thankful) what happened in Tulsa could easily happen in Sylvania Township, Ohio.  Or, more likely, in the city of Sylvania, or the city of Toledo.

The real problem is that the elected officials of Tulsa will very likely face no discomfort at all over their tyrannical actions, but this situation is hardly unique to Tulsa.  Consider the double-wide on Pennsylvania Avenue and the current tenant (his lease is up in November of 2012).  The First Lady has a penchant for gardening and in fact has published a book about it.  I wonder if Herself has heard about a poor old lady in Tulsa?  I wonder if she even cares?

I'm being facetious.