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Don’t Look For The Label

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Today’s post comes from Dr. Larry Kyle of Genway, the supermarket that specializes in genetically engineered foods.

I’m very disappointed in Connecticut.

It’s a nice, wealthy eastern state that’s full of educated people, so why don’t they show more creativity when it comes to addressing concerns about Genetically Modified foods? The state legislature just passed a bill that, when certain conditions are met, will require GM foods to carry a label identifying them as such.

A label?

Labels are boring. The only reason to insist on labels is because you have Absolutely No Idea what gene manipulation can do! If I were passing laws to control Laboratory Based Manipulation Of Our Diet, I would make useful rules. I would require all food finaglers to Do Something Inventive that would make it Obvious we are Dealing with A Product That Did Not Originate in the Natural World!

They're Delicious Hot or Coiled
Delicious Hot or Coiled

Like the Genway COBRAnana!

Our COBRAnana is a tightly wound nutrient-rich package coiled and waiting to strike you numb with its tasty goodness. Yes, it senses your presence and although it does nothing to outwardly indicate that it knows you are near, when you least expect it you will find yourself with a face full of high-potassium fruitiness!

And yes, it carries a label, but slapping a tiny sticker on the produce is for cowards. You don’t need something like that to let people know they are about to eat A Banana That Springs From The Mind of Man!

I’m surprised that I have to say it here in the Land of Innovation, but this is what the Connecticut law should require. Not labels or the participation of neighboring states.

Creativity!

Dr. Kyle has a point – if you can’t use genetic manipulation to make your produce look instantly recognizable to even the most casual shopper, then what good is it?

What is distinctive about your style?

41 thoughts on “Don’t Look For The Label”

  1. Good morning. It is very hard for me to figure out what kind of style I project. Some times I wonder if I am really here. Maybe I am an imaginary person in a imaginary world.

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  2. As a professional communicator, I needed to develop a recognizable style. I got in the business at a time when the norm for outdoor writers was to try to impress readers with their expertise. It was only natural that I would go the opposite way. From an early time, my distinctive style as a writer was candid, friendly and unpretentious.

    Divorce was a lot like a car accident that “totals out” a car. After my divorce I understood I would have to rebuild a personal identity, for the old one lay in ruins about my feet. I had to find what in my past I would discard and what I could retain. Candor and lack of pretension were too basic to discard, but I came to realize that I would need to balance them with a bit of self respect. That was the hard part. Some days I can do it, and some days I cannot. Either way, I am deeply grateful for the chance to try. Not everyone who totals a car (or, in my case, a personality) is lucky enough to walk away and get a second chance to get things right.

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    1. It is good to hear that you have found a way to move forward with your life, Steve. Good for you. I have more or less wandered through life. My style does not seem to move me forward in any organized way. I do try to get things right. As I said above, how do I know how to evaluate my style? In fact, I think I would be better off if I took life a little easier and adopted a lighter approach to dealing with the world.

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      1. I might be tempted to take credit for moving on, Jim, as you generously put it. But I didn’t have a choice. One day you wake up to find you have hit the rocks and everything you valued lies in little pieces. Then you do what you can do.

        Having met you, I think your personal style as a living person is lighter and more optimistic than the “you” in your posts. In either case, you are a likable, thoughtful person.

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        1. Thanks for the kind comments, Steve. I do try to be optimist even though I have some trouble being that way at times.

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  3. my writing style has been a part of me since the dawn of the laptop and desk top computers . i used to type like normal people with carbon paper and whiteout but somewhere along the line in the process of email becoming the way we communicate i decided the use of capital letters was slowing me down. my thoughts come fast enough already and my fingers have gotten faster over time but not so much that the ideas of punctuation and proper attention to that stuff is going to happen any time soon.
    my kids say my clothes are not fashionable but they were sort of at one time. i remember when the clothes i like were in style and i had no problem with finding stuff that i liked. i may just have bought enough of it so it doesnt come p anymore. i found a pair of shoes i likes at galyins about 20 years ago and then i wore them out and went back to buy another pair to find them on close out special pricing so i bought two pair with such a deal they are born shoes so they only come in those weird european sized and i think i am a 44.5 or something very unmemorable and i have found that if i get a size too small it is a problem but if its a little too big it feels comfortable after a whiie. today i can only find them on ebay but i still have a pair and as it wears out i have been able to go find another. i have like many baboons articles of clothing older than the people i am talking to and while the stuff on the shelves at the store is ok , the same thing is happening with shirts and pants that is happening with candy bars pop houses and cars. jeans for 79 dollars please… shirts for anything over 19 dollars i dont think so. a candy bar was a nickle and a pop was a dime today a candy bar is 50 cent to a dollar and a pop is a dollar. the house that was 15 thousand when my parents bought it and 49 thousand when i did is 179 thousand dollars in a recession what the hell is that. cars… a vw was 300 new in 75 and now it is 10x more. i have decided 10x more is about right for my perception of what the cost of stuff ought to be,.i have become an old guy who lives in the past as i go forwrs in many other areas without thinking about how slow everything moved back in the old days,.a hat a beard a sport coat, comfortable shoes lower case and and a cup of tea. who could ask for anything more.

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    1. I am also always shocked to see how much everything cost compared to what these things cost when I was young. Of course, every thing is inflated and those who are lucky enough to have good jobs earn a lot more money than they did years ago. I remember when a job that paid $10,000 a year was a very good paying job.

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    2. Comparing prices can be misleading. I remember when “a pop” was five cents. But that was for 7 ounces of pop. What is the norm these days? Something like 28 ounces, I think. Similarly, the car that cost just a few thousand in the 1970s wasn’t nearly as safe, comfortable or pleasant to drive as a modern car. Then too, as Jim points out, salaries have escalated so looking at just the cost of items is not realistic. We also tend to forget that some things that used to be expensive are much less so now. A fairly primitive laptop computer might have sold for $6,000 a few years ago; a vastly better computer can be bought for $1,000 now.

      I sure agree that it is frustrating when something you come to value goes obsolete for one reason or another. My mother had a fetish about this. She was convinced that any product she really liked would be discontinued. At her house you might open a cabinet and find 40 bottles of hairspray because she had fallen in love with a particular hairspray, so she assumed it would be discontinued. What happened instead was she quit using hairspray!

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      1. Remember the time that cigarette prices escalated and she had Dad go out and buy 20 cartons? It never occurred to her that they’d get stale. Another time, she found a sale on batteries and bought enough to last a decade. Those, too, had a shelf life, but she got a really good deal!

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      1. Heck, that was supposed to go way up under your shoe comments.

        Oh well, since I have your attention now: my style would be sleeveless.

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      2. that is a wonderful movie ben. i have seen it twice since you mentioned it forst here and it is a good smile and a good story. if i could get my hands on 30 more pairs of these shoes i would take them right now. they are my shoes. theses for winter birky arizonas for summer and im all set.,,,,,

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    1. Speaking of style–I did not get near this blog yesterday so just read it now. Dale, thanks for the new font. It is easier to read. You could call it a sleek, unadorned style. Italics are the variation of the day. tim, I love the new photo.

      I am sad to see that Clyde has been absent for so long. There was a lot of comment on this yesterday. I love his cartoons.

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  6. Morning all.

    Style? Not sure that my name and “style” should be in the same sentence together. Maybe not even the same paragraph. Like tim, when I find something comfortable, I wear it until it falls apart and I have a few clothing items that are older than the Teenager. My personality style is casual. Very casual.

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    3. onnce it starts galling apart is the tiem it is most comfortable. i remember hearing about guys and their underwear. i am there, if i have to go to the hospital they will finf a guy with underwear that should have hit the rag bag a while back but no amount of newness comapres for comfort. if your underwear isnt comfortable there is something wrong wrong wrong

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  7. Being a wearer of stylish clothing doesn’t seem to be a characteristic of at least some of us that comment on this blog. I don’t even wear t shirts with stylish printing or pictures on them. I almost always wear genes which a fairly conservative shirt, usually having a plaid or stripped pattern. That’s my style and I’m sure it isn’t stylish.

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    1. my office mate buys the same windowpane shirt over and over and over agsin. we laugh when he buyd a nerw shirt because it is absolutely going to be the same as the one he owns. i would never own it and he would never own anyhting but. thats called style choice.

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    2. I got a good chuckle from this tim-like post, Jim. Yes, I’ll bet you wear genes. Most of us wear our genes on the inside, where they are hard to see, and we wear our blue jeans on the outside! 🙂

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    3. Here’e how little I know about style and fashion, I actually believed you, Jim, that there was a brand name that I didn’t know about called “genes.” Sounded plausible to me.

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  8. Nothing distinctive, really. Casual to the Max would about sum it up – no make-up; I did finally get a real haircut, instead of just flipping it up in the clippie.

    Seems to me that each generation adopts the clothing styles that were around when they were emerging adults. My mom’s group still wears nylons of some kind no matter what, and a sort of 60s hairstyle. My grandma’s crowd had flowy dresses, bluish hair, and those clunky tie shoes. My group is still wearing jeans a lot, sometimes Birkenstocks, and if the women own a skirt they’re not sure where it is.

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  10. I dress like a normal person all week long, then go crazy for my dancing nights out. Since I’m barely 5’1″ and quite petite, I can get away with buying adorable tops and wearing them as dresses. I’m embarrassed ahead of my death by the number of “going out dancing” outfits still with price tags on them (which my kids will have to sort through). I likely have enough to wear something different every night of the year, yet only dance 2-3 times a month. Part of my style (some might say “brand”) is colorful hats which I wear all year-round when out.

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      1. So you have been experimenting with your gravatar style, tim – cute kid a couple of days ago… and what do we call this lovely?

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        1. mb as i see her
          little kid was me a couple years ago and how i still feel when i am dreaming. when i wake up i am good til my feet hit the floor then it begins to dawn on me my inner me doesnt match up with the stiffness that takes the first few steps to unrust me and the tin man

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      2. About four years ago, my youngest, Steve, had a wedding based on the 80s “big hair” theme. My daughter had this great idea that our whole side of the family show up in 80s costumes. I went as Olivia Newton John. The playfulness of the event produced one of my favorite images including the avatar shot that appears on this site. If I could figure out how to change avatars, I would, Tim.

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  12. Personal style-tough subject for me, so I will stick with the bananas.

    I can’t help but think that Carmen Miranda’s milliner wishes she had had some of those cobrananas to work with….

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