Sunday 4 May 2008

music, food for the soul

The sea surrounding the UK, although full of interesting and beautiful things, is a fickle muse. Much of the year it is too cold or gloomy to consider entering, and our late spring here has lengthened our wait to go and explore what she has to offer.
The other love of my life is music, and music is made more powerful still when it is mixed with visuals. I recently came across the music of a one Levon Helm, and below is a fairly lengthy music video compilation from him. I am drawn to post this as the sentiment therein is one that I share. I grew up in the heart of the English Countryside, where farming is part of the texture of the land. I was involved in farming for over fifteen years, and watched as the industry changed and eventually died around us. This film harks back to those times, albeit on a different continent and shows how farming people are influenced by the changing world around them. Often farmers are blamed for the wholesale destruction of the environment, but really, is it not us as consumers who are to blame? How are we to eat if not for the corn or the cow? As our population explodes, we point our fingers at the simplistic men and women of the countryside, laying the blame, but it is not the farmers of dirt that are guilty, it is farmers of greed. Consumer wealth and electronic superstatus are the order of today, so sit back and watch this, and celebrate the good old days.

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