Editors' Notebook

(With Apologies to Michael Pollan)

Hello. My name is Cheri and I am a hypocrite.

I willingly admit it. For instance, I won't buy real fur. I think the only people who NEED to have real fur coats, hats, gloves or lined boots are those who live north of the Arctic Circle.

Yet, I covet real fur. I go into the winter apparel departments of stores like Fleet Farm or Cabela's and I find the hats and gloves lined or trimmed with fur and stroke them... for a disturbingly long time. They are so soft; so beautiful to the touch.

Last summer, I went into an antiques store in Devil's Lake, N.D., that specialized in vintage and antique furs. I petted those coats. I hugged them like they were puppies. I considered buying a mink capelet (the cheapest thing available) for $200. I have nowhere to WEAR a mink capelet, but the feel was intoxicating.

In the end, the price drove me away more than my desire to be virtuous to my "no fur" rule. And I will wear leather with no qualms at all.

See, hypocrite.

Then there's meat. I eat meat. I like meat. Beef, pork, chicken, fish in that order. Steak off the grill covered with garlic salt is the perfect food in my book. I buy and cook and digest plenty of animal protein.

BUT I don't want to be the one slaughtering the animal. Hey, I don't even want to be reminded that someone else slaughtered the animal.

That's the hypocritical part.

I know how that particular protein food chain is set up. And I am forever indebted to those who raise, slaughter and sell me my meat. But I prefer to wear my blinders.

See, hypocrite.

The recent New MacDonald campaign from some organic food purveyors got me thinking about my own hypocrisy -- and the hypocrisy of others. The video shows grade schoolers performing a music program in which they first sing "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" and show cows getting injected with hormones and fields being sprayed with greenish clouds and chickens housed in tight cages. Then the kids sing about NEW MacDonald, who has open pastures where cows run hormone-free, chickens scratch and peck to their hearts' content outside of cage walls and crops are grown sans pesticides and GMOs.

Their loving parents in the audience give them a standing ovation.

I wonder how many of those standing ovationers drive non-hybrid vehicles? How many of those kids and their parents have iPhones, computers and other worldly goods made in China or other countries where labor laws are no bother? Are all their personal hygiene products chemical free and produced without animal testing? How many live in McMansions made out of materials imported or domestic, the production of which can totally be termed sustainable? What about their perfectly manicured lawns? What industries do these appreciators of New MacDonald work in? Are there petroleum industry daddies? Plastics industry mommies? The dreaded tobacco marketer?

I'm not pointing any fingers. I happily use products from all these industries which some people deem "bad." My husband is a smoker. But there's an old saying about not throwing stones if one lives ones' not-entirely-without-blame life in a glass house, furnished with the best, unsustainable modern detritus one can afford.

The only way I might be "better" than the hypocrites who created this New MacDonald campaign and the actor-portrayed hypocrites clapping their hearts out at the end of the simulated grade school performance is that I admit I'm a hypocrite. And I haven't posted any videos lately attacking other people's livelihoods and life styles.

Let he who is without iPhone cast the first stone.

(GH\SK)

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