New Mexico State Fair, McDonald's Farm, Earl Butz

Back from Albuquerque.  Late.  About twelve hours since I wrote about going to Albuquerque, finishing another long day, but about what?  About the New Mexico State Fair?  State fairs are all alike.  Big food.  Big people.  Midways, attractions, the world's smallest this, its smallest that.  Animals.  Blue ribbons.  Don't forget about the animals.  Saw a baby lamb atop a miniature picnic table.  You know, one made for children.  Just standing on it.  In a pen.  Behind a fence.  This was within the confines of McDonald's Farm.  Those clever marketers.  Upon entrance into McDonald's farm you were handed a basket, a mini basket such as farmers use.  If you weren't in the mood to practice your skills with the lasso (on a plastic bull's head, mounted on a sled), you could fill your basket with fruits and veggies.  Plastic ones.  I picked one plastic red pepper.  A worker woman told me and my companion (a pen pal who happened to be in Albuquerque) that the fruits and veggies look real.  They didn't look real at all.  Fake fruits in real, if tiny, baskets.  But that doesn't take the cake.  This does...

Along the farm fence rows (plant fence row to fence row; get big or get out) (Earl Butz), were these interesting signs.  One for beef, one for chicken, one for pork, one for tomatoes, and definitely one for potatoes, and they all said the same thing: Proud to be U.S. Agriculture's #1 customer.  No shit.  Still think this country isn't an agricultural nation at its bottom?  But then, can you really call the agriculture, to which these signs refer, agriculture?  Is there anything agrarian about it?  Seven hundred and fifty million pounds of beef annually?  And what about the culture part of agriculture?  What kind of culture is it?  These are questions that you ask when you leave the state fair.  When your wallet is empty from throwing softballs at bottles.  Where is my decorative mirror with a pro wrestler on it?  The organic farm where I am working is only 2 hours drive from the state fair.  Not very far.  But how far is the organic produce we grow here from the propaganda that grows (without water or soil) on McDonald's farm?  I don't really know.  My guess is that, if you tried to drive that distance, you would use all the oil in Iraq.