Organic vegetables are just like real vegetables, only dirtier. A normal vegetable lives its life in a germ- and pest-free environment until it is harvested, covered in wax and preservatives, and left to "ripen" on palettes in large warehouses for several months, just as our early agrarian ancestors intended. However, the organic vegetable is continually assaulted by bugs and fungi and varmints until it is ripped from the earth and often not even washed before it lands in the salad of a hippie.
Sure, everybody talks about how marvelous organic vegetables are these days -- but have they ever seen a tomato hornworm? Do you really want that kind of monster crawling over stuff you put in your mouth?
One person apparently does: Michelle Obama. She has vowed to defile the White House lawn by putting in an organic vegetable garden on the South grounds, near the fountain.
Such a decision was, in retrospect, entirely predictable. After all, one of the Obamas' first moves as new White House occupants was to hire a cook obsessed with "locally sourced foods," which is code for "filthy dandelion greens ripped from the nearest sewer grate, and perhaps some fresh pigeon meat."
Now the Obamas intend to ruin a perfectly lovely patch of grass with an ugly mound of dirt, manure, and misshapen, bug-chewed rutabagas. Oh well. They'll at least be setting an example for their fellow Americans, who soon enough will have to resort to subsistence farming once the latest stimulus effort fails.
The horticulturist Sara K. Smith writes for NBC and Wonkette.
