The Botany of Desire

What did corn do to merit so much care, attention, and expansion to so many acres of farmland around the world? One could say that corn has us by the short hairs. You, we, I (are) am servants to corn.

What if we are really like the bees- what if plants manipulate us to work for them the way flowers get bees to due their work for them (pollinating)? This is not my idea, but rather Michael Pollen's from his book The Botany of Desire. I remember the first time I heard this idea- then bought and read the book. I was pregnant with one of my four babes and jumped into this theory like a deep pool of crystal clear water. I completely take on new ideas- no barriers, no filters- to see how they fit and feel. If it's not want I want after a bit, I step up out of the water and dry myself off and wait for the next exhilarating feeling of being immersed in another paradigm breaking concept.

So play with me here. What if corn seduced us to put all this care, concern, effort, and time into propagating it around the world? Corn caught us the way a flower "catches" a bee. We are just a tool of corn to keep it going generation after generation.

Think about it. Men gather to advance corn's agenda - local chapters of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association are meeting somewhere tonight. Imagine organizing around a plant, meeting and figuring out how to keep your plant at the top of the heap. Who's the real winner? Well if you are in the corn family, I guess that would be the corn plant.

I've figured out how to grind corn in my flour mill. Corn bread for dinner tonight folks. We'll take that corn right in- no middle man like a corn fed feedlot steer or the ethanol in my tank to go to town for groceries. Grown, ground, consumed- in the quiet privacy of my home--mmmmm.
All hail King Corn.