# 1 Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is an extraordinarily goofy 1978 satire of cheesy horror movies — yet in itself it is an incredibly cheesy horror movie. And the tomatoes are not scary. At all.
# 2 As discussed at the ID project on Wed June 18, Mara is the mythical or metaphorical being who tempts Buddha away from his direct experience of reality by taking one of four forms – and Yama, god of Death, is the fourth. The idea we can escape death is a major form of ignorance, I guess.
In the past weeks, there’s been a scary spate of illnesses — and even deaths — from tomato-borne salmonella poisoning. No news organization has referenced the aforesaid movie in relation to the problem. (This shows a remarkable amount of good taste on the part of news organizations.) But, actually, some tomatoes will kill you.
The news folk have certainly been out raising the alarm. One reporter jammed a microphone in a friend’s face at the Green Market in Union Square on Thursday, asking: “So, i see you bought some tomatoes. Why did you buy them? Wjy did you buy them here?” [subtext: aren’t you AFRAID of those tomatoes?!?”]
People are afraid, and with good cause, of getting salmonella. They don’t want to eat contaminated food, or food that makes them sick, either immediately or down the road aways. This is all sensible and good.
But the level of hysteria and minute attention paid to food in upper middle class America is obscene. Yes, obscene. We have more than enough food and choice. Malnutrition isn’t gonna kill us. Eating isn’t gonna kill us. But if you read the New York Times science and health section too often, you might not believe that. From “I heard you should eat walnuts and tofu.” “I heard soy screws with your hormones.” “I heard salmon is good for the heart.” “I heard farm-raised salmon has antibiotics in it.” “Milk helps you lose weight.” to “I lost 20 pounds when I cut out dairy,” countless studies and counterstudies and observations and recommendations about fiber, coffee, blueberries, meat, soy, and more that evince a bizarre preoccupation with maintaining health and eating right.
Surrounded by more and better food than anyone in the world, we’re terrified of it.
Because we are afraid of death. We think if we can just hit the right combo, the right lottery ticket of numbers of fat grams, carbs, and protein, that we can WIN. Win the game. If eating meat kills you, then not eating meat . . . give you eternal life? Longer life, better life, MORE life. Cuz all we want to do is play that game with Yama and WIN. And no one ever has.
If we are alive, we will be dead. Yup. No matter what we eat. Or don’t eat.
My favorite news story ever about this was New York magazine’s October 06 investigation of the cult of the Extreme Calorie Restrictors. The author, Julian Dibbell, wrote:
“Calorie Restriction, a diet whose central, radical premise is that the less you eat, the longer you’ll live. . . . a lifetime lived as close to the brink of starvation as your body can stand, in exchange for the promise of a life span longer than any human has ever known. . . .
It isn’t hard to see the diet’s appeal to a certain very familiar New York type: You’re skinnier than any social X-ray, you’re practicing a regimen as extreme and as grueling as any yogi’s, and you’ve got some impressive medical science on your side. For someone attracted to control, accomplishment, and power, this is the life.”
By the end of the article, the Calorie Restrictors are talking to Julian about ” ‘actuarial escape velocity,’ a transhumanist term for that moment in the acceleration of biomedical progress when, for every year you live, technology adds another year or more to your maximum life span. . . .” and the author recalls, “the casual yet total confidence with which Don and Michael had discussed their prospects for eternal life on Earth.”
By starving, ye will gain eternal life. Somewhere Yama’s laughing his ass off.
Me, I’m gonna go look for that tray of cookies Eva posted here a few days ago, in her blog pointing out that imminent death can make people want to eat more. Eat more, eat less. Yama’s still laughing.
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