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November 7, 2003
Kennedy Extends Flatulence Crusade to Bean Farmers Is Asian Pollution Cloud Caused by Human Methane Emissions? Sen. Edward Kennedy is taking his campaign against flatulence to bean farmers in North Dakota and Minnesota. The Massachusetts Democrat is calling their new campaign to promote bean consumption "a danger to the environment that will increase global warming and degrade the quality of life for millions of Americans who want to live free from noxious odors." The farmers' advertising campaign will feature slogans like, "Who cut the cholesterol?" and "Toot if you like beans." It promotes primarily pinto beans, a staple in Mexican cuisine, and navy beans, widely used in military kitchens. Even North Dakota's governor, John Hoeven, got into the eat your beans act, quipping, "...the more you eat, the more you... become strong and healthy." Sen. Kennedy, who took on the beef industry last summer over environmental problems caused by cattle flatulence, wasn't amused. "Even we Kennedy children used to chant that old refrain, 'Beans, beans, the musical fruit. The more you eat the more you toot,'" he said at a news conference in Washington. "Our mother hated us singing it." But Kennedy said it's wrong to trivialize environmental concerns through scatological jokes and crude language. "Methane emissions from farting, whether it's humans or pigs or cattle, can no longer be ignored as a serious environmental problem," he said. With nearly 6 billion people inhabiting earth, Kennedy contends that human flatulence has become a massive air pollution problem. The senator's aides, speaking privately, often go one step further and suggest that the permanent cloud of air pollution shown by satellite photos to be hanging over Asia is primarily the result of uncontrolled human flatulence. Kennedy has called for a tax on methane gas produced by cattle flatulence, but so far stopped short of proposing the tax be extended to foods that cause excessive flatulence in humans. The restaurant industry, and particularly some fast food chains, has been keeping a wary eye on the Massachusetts senator's interest in flatulence, fearing that he might extend his tax proposal to include taxing methane emitted by the digestion of the foods they serve. The National Association of Mexican Restaurants said it has already hired a lobbyist and has its own public awareness campaign waiting in the wings should Sen. Kennedy begin talking about attaching a "farting tax" to each diner's tab at a Mexican eatery. "His attacks on the bean growers has us on alert," said Howard Snodgrass, a spokesman for the Mexican restaurants group. "This business about bean farmers could be the first rumble in terms of trying to regulate how Mexican restaurants prepare their dishes." At the Pentagon, a Department of Defense spokesman said the military serves "several hundred thousand tons" of beans a year. The spokesman, an Army sergeant major who asked not to be identified, said that after years of living at close quarters with enlisted men in barracks, he has concluded that "the farts are bad but the flies are worse." Copyright William Stockton & Smithtown Creek Productions |
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