Editor,
It’s fun to think that everything American-iconic has a special value because it represents us at a certain point of “being great” and we are only “getting greater.” Among our iconic items that were proposed to travel into deep space on Voyager 1, or be buried in a time capsule, were Twinkies.
What can be more iconic than our very cute little Twinkie cakes being discovered by aliens or school kids 80 years from now? Bill Clinton said that the Twinkie is about iconic as American food can get. Once upon a time, Twinkies were made with things like cream and eggs.
Another iconic item, that has now become a strict social norm, is the American lawn. Turf grass in its purest form, and in its native Irish climate and temperatures, was a soft velvety carpet of cool green to walk upon.
At some point for both of these icons, chlorine, bleach, benzine, polysorbate, and ever more petroleum-based chemicals and polys, and ever more additive-laden junk, would Make America Great – proud green lawns and pink-cheeked kids with lunch pails of Twinkies.
Never mind that to keep our lawns going all summer, we chlorinate water, burn oil and gas machines and apply chemicals to kill this and that. In fact, “Killing” is what the lawn and garden departments at Walmart and most recently, Home Depot, selling Roundup laced with pesticides that Kill everything on your lawn for three months straight!
In order to keep the kids fed, wired and going strong. nearly five teaspoons of sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, chlorinated-bleached flour and all kinds of wizardry and chemistry is applied to abracadabra produce a Twinkie that has some of its ingredients sourced from China or India.
Emerald lawns and pink-cheeked children aren’t made in laboratories. What are we feeding the lawn and the kids? They will be healthier without the processing of their food and pollution caused in the environment by our great American lawns.
It’s ironic that most of our great iconic inventions and social norms were once organic in nature but chemistry turned them into a something else. If only we could bury our icons that aren’t serving our children or the planet well.
Susan Pang