Food Researchers announce new genetically-modified fruits

Researchers in the field of genetically-modified foods will announce in an up-coming issue of The Journal of Food Science a new breakthrough in the genetic technologies responsible for the growing of some of the basic fruits and vegetables we put on our table. These technologies will literally change the shape of the fruits and vegetables we put on our table every day. These shocking photos were first leaked to the blog “After These Messages

The above gallery depicts three fruits which were candidates in the pilot project spearheaded by an undisclosed transnational fruit company. The banana depicted shows the true power of genetically-modification to add company logos as part of the new design of these fruits. This opens the door for future use of the banana peel for the sale of advertising space for humanitarian organisations like ChildFind. The next banana you eat might have pictures of missing children grown into the banana peel.

One also cannot deny that the shape of these fruits — like that of a cube or rectangular prism — makes it easy for companies to package and ship, and also make it easier for consumers to place in their grocery bags.

The same will be happening to other fruits and vegetables. Spokespeople for the food industry say that nature does not provide us with fruits and vegetables that come in shapes that are convenient for us to carry from the market. The strawberry, like the banana, has an irregular shape, and giving it a cubic shape results in less bruising during transport. While there still needs to be some care taken for the packaging, some care still needs to be taken, since these fruits are soft and fleshy. Researchers are working on a more dense fruit and also on a banana which can be harvested in the ripened state so that consumers need not wait for days to eat under-ripe bananas, a sore point which has hurt banana sales in the past.

Researchers have also changed the shape of kiwis into small prisms, roughly the size of kid’s drink boxes. With an added artistic flair, and to reduce processing costs, they have also found a way for kiwis to grow their own straws, greatly reducing manufacturing costs at the plant level. One disadvantage is that kiwis are apparently resistant to genetic modification of its outer surface for placement of things like the company logo or the product name. This is largely due to its fibrous exterior. Strawberries face the same problem, having seeds on its exterior.

Sources at various fruit growing companies such as Chiquita and Dole vehemently deny any attempt to change the shape of fruits, which they say are trusted products which consumers have been familiar with for generations.

Many thanks to After These Messages for the photoshopping of those photos.

A NatLamp article at a White Supremacist site

I have been a fan of the National Lampoon since I was a teen in the 1970s. One of the most shocking articles for me to read in the mid 70s was P J O’Rourke’s “Foreigners From Around The World”, which appeared in the National Lampoon in May, 1976. The article is really a heap of ethnic jokes strung together, formulated to piss off all minorities equally. Maybe some more equally than others.

Even in my teens I realised that the humour is meant to be taken in irony. Problem is, O’Rourke dropped few hints that he was actually joking, outside of the fact that the entire article was totally outrageous. It is an orgy of stereotypes said without much apology. I felt at least a little disturbed by the article for that reason.

The reason I am bringing it up now, is because for the first time since I disposed of my NatLamp collection, I found the article using Google. Problem was, it was found at a White Supremacist site. Like most racist sites, you never actually know for sure you are at a racist site until you do some poking around. Then you begin to stumble on actual hate literature. For reasons of my own sense of ethics, I won’t post the link, but anyone can still easily Google to that site and find it easily enough if they really want to.

Now I am wondering if my willingness to be entertained by the article was actually an acceptance of hate literature, and was O’Rourke an earlier version of talk show hosts such as Ron Imus or Rush Limbaugh? O’Rourke does rescue himself, however, by lampooning his own ethnicity, which by his surname appears to be Irish. The illustration for the Irish is one of a nasty-looking lerperchaun, describing the Irish as “Pie-faced, neckless, bandy-legged sots who almost never fuck.” Maybe that gets him off the hook. For my part, I didn’t keep a scorecard.

But in addition, there is a larger idea that he appears to lampoon that is easy to miss among all of the sniping about individual ethnic groups. The United States is composed almost entirely of the ethnic groups he is making fun of. Ultimately, if we follow the logic to the end, it is America itself, his own country of residence, which he lampoons.

I wannabe Chris: A parody about Chris Crocker Parodies – Updates

Some updates to the story I wrote.

There are some minor changes to my story. (link above)

The Chris Crocker video in question.

His imitators (parody, of course, and not all male). Many of these stray far off the topic of Chris Crocker: 1 2 3 4 5 (Israel?) 6 7 8 9 10 (a hockey player?) 11
There are dozens more, but I haven’t got anywhere near that kind of time to collect them all.

I have a link to the original story about The Hockey Sweater by Roch Carrier.

Some related comments in an earlier article I wrote.