What lies behind us or what lies before us are small matters when compared to what lies inside us.Ralph Waldo Emerson

Inner Life Directions

Expanding Reality

Governance

  • Expiration Dates Are Not What They Are

    The US Department of Agriculture calls it Food product dating, we know it as expiration dates on the many foods we buy. Except those dates are not as valid as they appear, most products are good way past the printed date and some years past.  Sugar, honey, vanilla and other extracts, salt, vinegar can last just about forever. Rice and lentils for example are good for years, except for brown rice which is only good for months. Eggs last far longer than their dates and canned goods unless there are rust or bulges on the cans can last years too. The dates are, according to the NYT article I urge you to look at, arbitrarily arrived at, and do not mean the food item is spoiled. As far as I can tell the dates are decided upon by the manufacturer, therefore tend to be on the conservative side. That wouldn’t be surprising since it would encourage greater consumption. In an era when we need to be mindful of how we use resources, this invites unnecessary waste. In fact the notion of expiration dates not representing the end of product usability is not new. A while back I did a piece on medications which also do not have accurate dating.

     Expiration dates are so much part of our culture, we don’t give them much thought and assume if it says January 2022 it is January 2022.  This revelation, spurred by the need for many to use what’s in their pantry during being sheltered at home, forces us to think for ourselves, to use our common sense about what is spoiled and what is not.  Let’s call it a silver lining from the pandemic.

  • Are Guns Essentials To Being Safe?

    It’s no secret by now that ever since most of us are being sheltered in place there has been a run on gun stores throughout the country. A couple a miles from my home, for instance, the line in front of a gun store went around the block. Gun right activists and lobbying groups explain it as part of the essential services which attend to survival. If I understand their argument, it is not enough to have groceries one must also have a gun in order to feel safe. In fact some of these groups have petitioned the White House and other parts of the federal government to declare gun stores essential businesses not subject to closure during the current shutdowns. Different states have applied different standards, Pennsylvania has upheld the right to bear arms, so has New Mexico. In California the governor has delegated the power to local sheriffs and in several counties gun shops have been closed.

    It ought to be predictable that gun rights groups would link guns with being essential and with safety, it is nevertheless disturbing. The issue of safety is of course moot, because to someone like me safety means less guns, gun stores closure, and it certainly entails not equating guns to groceries as a means of survival. The argument linking guns to safety may underlines our divide, still illustrating how far the gun lobbies are willing to go is a necessity.

    Please Note: The Corona virus crisis is changing so much of our lives, we need certain things to continue as they are, and so we are.

  • The Return of Landmines

    The Trump administration is reviving the use of landmines.  The state department’s cable announcing it said that it would only consider landmines with “technologically advanced safeguards” meaning mines which could self-destruct or mines which can be detonated by remote control. With the exception of Afghanistan in 2002, the US has not used landmines since 1991 and has not produced any since 1997. The treaty banning landmines was signed by 164 nations including all of the US NATO allies. The US however did not sign the treaty wanting to reserve the right to use them in the Korean peninsula. Nevertheless since 1997much progress was made towards destroying the stockpile.  Rob Berschinski who worked on landmine policy in the Obama administration and who is now with Human Rights First says that “…they’re not only massively harmful to civilians after war’s end, but they’re also of very negligible military utility.” Landmine Monitor, an organization which monitors landmines, estimates that between 1999 and 2018 there has been 130,000 casualties, mainly civilians.

    This may be another instance of the administration rolling back the policies of its predecessor, but it is also a way to erase progress that was made toward creating a more harmless more humane world.

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