[Peace-discuss] NYTimes.com Article: A Heretic Amid the Hibiscus

[Barbara Dyskant]

Hi all,

I  think you folks will want to see this.   Gardeners take special note.

Barbara Dyskant
Still here organizing (and gardening) in Olean


A Heretic Amid the Hibiscus
> 
> May 2, 2003
> By DONNA SCHAPER  
> New York Times> 
> 
> 
> CORAL GABLES, Fla.
> I don't know that I will ever receive a formal letter of
> rejection from the Coral Gables Garden Club. I know of the
> rejection only because one of my sponsors for membership
> told me. The reason had nothing to do with the quality of
> my flower arrangements. Nor did it stem from my spotty
> record as a tropical gardener. (I am a pretty good Northern
> gardener, but the tropics have stumped me more than once.)
> 
> The reason offered to my sponsor for my rejection was that
> I was "too liberal." The club members have a point: I spoke
> out against the war in Iraq, and I've been arrested for
> protesting against other wars and marching for abortion
> rights and racial justice.
> 
> With this rejection, I thus join Tim Robbins in this
> strange season: he was disinvited to a Baseball Hall of
> Fame event on similar grounds. I join Susan Sarandon, who
> was disinvited by the United Way of Tampa Bay for antiwar
> comments. I join the poets who were disinvited to the White
> House because they might have embarrassed the president. At
> least I am in good company.
> 
> Being blackballed by the green-thumb crowd - blue-haired or
> otherwise - is a sobering experience. But I can change. If
> a dyed-in-the-wool Zone 5 gardener can toss away her
> forcing forsythia, picking up her roots and replanting them
> in the land of the bougainvillea, then surely the garden
> club can consider me again.
> 
> In hopes of having another chance at membership, I have
> thought of renaming my French string beans, which are
> miraculously giving a daily crop. Perhaps henceforth they
> should be called liberty beans. Same for the French
> lettuces. There is really no need to give the lettuce a
> nationality. We can just call it lettuce and leave it at
> that. I could bathe my night-blooming jasmine in red, white
> and blue lights and put bunting around the orange jasmine.
> 
> The dozens of bromeliads in my front yard could be a
> problem: they all have spikes of pink flowers. Might the
> garden club think, shades of Joe McCarthy, that I am a
> pinko? 
> 
> I am writing a third garden book to spruce up my
> credentials. Did I mention that when I first came to town
> the club featured me as a speaker? When I finished
> speaking, the audience clapped. In the question and answer
> session, no one asked about politics. Many people bought
> the books. Perhaps they found evidence of my politics in
> the pages. Was there something suspicious about the way I
> mulch? Are my rock decorations a threat to homeland
> security? 
> 
> Perhaps I should write a new book called "Politically
> Correct Gardening." In it I could show the single right way
> to plant, hoe, seed and compost. I would focus on native
> plants (or ones that originated in countries among
> America's coalition of the willing). I would avoid pink
> flowers altogether. Nothing French would be mentioned. All
> plants would have to look good in bunting.
> 
> Gardening is my hobby. I wanted to join the club because
> its members know stuff I want to know. I'm not going to get
> in, but I have learned something in the process. A good
> gardener - even a liberal one - can't take this sort of
> rejection on her gardening kneepad. She takes off her
> gloves, puts down her shears and stands up.
> 
> 
> Donna Schaper, senior pastor of the Coral Gables
> Congregational Church, is author of "The Art of Spiritual
> Rock Gardening."
> 
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/02/opinion/02SCHA.html?ex=1052868286&ei=1&en=51
> a621c334fba5fa
> 
> 
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